Recommendation: This is a short book that is easy to squeeze into your reading schedule that will challenge your views on censorship and media consumption. Move it up to high priority on your TBR and buy a copy as this one is very re-readable.

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury was written back in 1953 and it is still relevant today. In Bradbury’s world firefighters start fires, especially burning books. The masses are told what to think and propaganda rules the world. Individuals spend all their time watching television shows that have little value or content. Depression and suicide haunt this world but society tells individuals that being equal is the road to happiness, and that books create inequality and sadness. Everything changes when the story’s protagonist, Montag, meets a young girl that challenges the way he sees the world.

Fahrenheit 451 is one of those staples of classic science fiction that I should have read a long time ago. I felt a lot of hype going into it and the hype did not let me down. This was an excellent book that related to a lot of things going on today. There is a move for there to be revision to a lot of classic books that aren’t consider politically correct anymore. Some individuals want to put restrictions on the type of books that younger readers can check out at the library or buy at the store. This type of censorship is explored in Fahrenheit 451 and why this type of censorship hurts society as a whole.

There were two things that really impacted me while reading Fahrenheit 451 other than the censorship issue. The first is the society’s focus on physical activity in the school system in that world. Physical activity is definitely important in the school system but the 451 world takes it to the extreme in place of reading. I found myself thinking about our own world and our own focus on physical fitness and gym culture. There is much less focus on self education and enjoyment reading in our society anymore. People are more concerned about working out their bodies than their mind and character.

The other thing that really impacted me when I read this book is the complete obsession that Millie, Montag’s wife, had on watching her “family” television programming. It reminded me so much of our society’s obsession with binge watching at the moment. We have more televisions shows and movies available to watch instantly for a cheap subscription fee than what people have time for. I am all about a nice binge watching session on Netflix but it is very easy for Netflix to take over your life. If you enter the average American home, most people are just staring at screens, being entertained but with very little mental interaction, just like Fahrenheit 451.

I highly enjoyed this novel, I will be re-reading this in the future. The prose was fantastic, I did not expect this lyrical of a writing style from Bradbury. I could see where this might rub some people the wrong way because Bradbury takes things to the extreme in this novel and it could be highly political, but I enjoyed it. I took off one star because the ending was a little clunky compared to the rest of the novel.

I only read 83 pages of Aftermath and I just wasn’t feeling it. The book is written in present tense which was a mistake. The story that was being set up did not interest me at all. This story reminded me that it is the characters and not the politics of the Star Wars Universe that interest me. Basically the story is about the Empire trying to regroup on a remote planet but some rebels causing some issues. There are none of the iconic Star Wars characters in this book, except for Wedge, and as far as I know, no Jedi. What is the point of reading a Star Wars book without Jedi? It just wasn’t my thing but I hope some other die hard Star Wars fans love it.

Recommendation: If you are a young adult reader I recommend a buy for you on Carry On, with a bump up on your TBR list to high, and if you are a not a young adult reader, a library borrow when you want something light and easy to read with YA romance. Rowell takes on the “chosen one, magician school” genre with satire, a gay romance, and a story that straddles the line between something clever and fan fiction.

Carry On is a magician school story about a chosen boy that will destroy the great evil plaguing the school. It is purposefully a Harry Potter rip off and the book is featured in the book Fan Girl by Rowell, where that main character loves this fictional book. There is as much romance in this book as there is fantasy, so fans that are looking for a purely fantasy book, look elsewhere. The book is a multiple point of view story that is told in first person. At the top of each new section, the author makes sure to tell you which character’s point of view we are now seeing the world through.

Simon Snow is the chosen one, the one with the most magic of any magician ever, and his nemesis is called the Insidious Humdrum. Snow can’t really control his magic but he is able to, in the right moment, stop the Humdrum with a blast of uncontrolled powerful magic. Baz, his roommate, and his arch rival at their school, is Simon’s worst enemy other than the Humdrum, and a vampire. The funny thing is that Baz is actually secretly in love with Simon.

Carry On by Rainbow Rowell has some great characters that really grew on me. Simon is just a complete mess, he doesn’t really think anything through, and acts incredibly impulsive all the time. I like how he is a super powerful magician but can’t really control his magic at all. Baz is probably my favorite character and in my opinion the main character of this book. Baz’s struggle to be Simon’s enemy but also having deep feelings for him is interesting to read. He is the character in this book with the most depth. Penelope is Simon’s best friend and just overall female buddy. This completely platonic relationship between Simon and Penelope is fantastic and their friendship is great to read about.

The strength of this book is really the relationship between Simon and Baz. Simon and Baz’s relationship just kind of makes sense with these two characters and was great to read. Readers looking for more gay main character relationships in their books should definitely check this book out. The adolescent romance didn’t annoy me at all and that is impressive considering a lot of YA like relationships annoy me. I think it didn’t annoy me because these two characters had such a history together.

The characters is what made the book for me and the reason I liked it but I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was reading fan fiction through out the entire book. I guess it makes sense because the book is a fictional book in another book about a girl that writes fan fiction about this book. Then again, I just wasn’t impressed with Rowell’s writing. I’ve heard a lot about Rainbow Rowell in the last few years and I’ve wanted to read one of her books but I think the fact that YA is not something I usually enjoy is the reason I felt her writing was weak. I felt the plot was horribly predictable and the resolution seemed too easy. I wanted more mystery and more exploring of the school in the book. The school setting was extremely under-utilized, I think she could of added a lot more imagination, and the magic system needed more conditions and too simplistic.

Overall I enjoyed Carry On. I don’t read many books with gay romance in them, it was nice to read one that I enjoyed. If you are a person to gush over LGBQT centered books, I think you’ll love this book, especially if you are a YA reader. I’m glad I read this, it was an enjoyable quick read, but YA romance books are just not my thing.

Recommendation: I recommend a try on this book when it is deep discounted or borrowed from the library. Low priority TBR. An imaginative and interesting world that gets over-shadowed by an awful final act.

The Mirror Empire by Kameron Hurley is an epic fantasy story that starts the beginning of The Worldbreaker Saga. The Mirror Empire is a multiple POV story that covers 3 different kingdoms, with one or sometimes two characters in each kingdom. Basically there is an unknown enemy that is causing issues in all 3 kingdoms, an enemy that is trying to take these 3 kingdoms for themselves. In fact, the enemy is already hidden within positions of power in these 3 kingdoms. We follow a handful of characters in different settings, separated from each other, but connected to each other in some way, as they find out about this conflict, and how it will impact everyone.

The Mirror Empire is one of the stronger world building books that I’ve read in fantasy lately. For the first half of this book I was completely enthralled by the world that Kameron Hurley created. My favorite aspect is that the magic system is tied to which sun in the sky is at prominence. If you follow that higher sun and can control that sun’s power, you will be stronger than other magic users that use magic from the other suns. Each sun gives off a different power to the followers of that sun like being able to control the wind, heal wounds, control plants, or create fire. Another interesting aspect of this world is the importance that plants are in this world. There are definitely more aggressive and dangerous plants, that can move, than there are wild animals. This allows there to be interesting scenes of traveling in this book because the reader gets to learn about all these weird, dangerous plants.

Hurley does a great job at putting small things into this world that captures your interest. There are strong matriarchal societies in The Mirror Empire where Hurley completely flips gender roles. This creates interesting questions that the reader can then apply to their own life about gender roles. Most of the characters in The Mirror Empire are sexually fluid and attracted to all different genders. In fact, there are 5 different genders in this book that connect strongly with the personality of the characters. Kameron Hurley has so many great ideas in this book but good ideas can only get your so far, and in this book it got me about half way.

It is around near the half way point, but more so in the last quarter of the book, where things start to unravel as Hurley starts to try to bring plot lines to a climax or merge the characters. I am very much a plot and story person when it comes to SFF and all the amazing world building couldn’t cover up the fact that this book ended badly. I was so disappointed in the scenes that the entire book was leading up to that I was just super annoyed with the book. The prominent, supposedly most exciting scene, that the entire book was pointing towards, was just laughably bad. The last forth of this book made the book drop from a 4 star read all the way down to a 2 star read for me. In the end, I thought the world was fantastic, and what she did with gender was better than a lot of books I’ve read, but the plot just didn’t come together. The entire last quarter of the book felt rushed and unguided.

I am going to try the sequel even though I was really disappointed in this first book. The foundation around the story is strong and I’m hoping that Hurley pulls the story together better in The Empire Ascendant. Basically, I like the world enough, to give it another try.

Recommendation: I recommend a buy on this if you like a dreary, noir like setting in your science fiction, that is mixed with mystery, and has a focus on figuring out the world building.

Alastair Reynolds continues to put out novels, like The Prefect, that invokes in me the same feelings I felt when I first saw Blade Runner or Alien. The prefect is a space opera science fiction novel with focus on mystery and world building. This book is set in the Revelation Space Universe but other books are not required to be read before this book. The Prefect centers around Tom Dreyfus, who is a prefect for the Glitter Band, a large ring of space habitats that circle a planet. The Glitter Band is composed of individual space habitats that each are autonomous with their own weird sub-cultures but rely on the prefects at Panoply to protect them. Dreyfus is an investigator prefect, a kind of law enforcer, that is now investigating the destruction of a habitat that was purposely destroyed, killing over 900 people, just to hide something. Dreyfus must figure out why that habitat was destroyed and how it connects to events in the past.

The strongest aspect of The Prefect by Alastair Reynolds is the world building. This is only the second novel by Reynolds I’ve read, along with some short stories, but I can always tell I am reading a Reynolds book based out of the Revelation Space Universe. There is an atmosphere that is difficult to explain without comparing it to other mediums but the Revelations Space Universe can be dark and brooding. It has slow space travel(can’t go faster than light-speed), many bio-engineered and mechanically altered human beings have changed themselves to live in space flight and increase the longevity of their life. Because of these changes, the different “races” in this world are all from normal Earth humans, but they are so different now that they can’t be considered baseline human.

The Revelation Space Universe is set over 400 years into the future, with The Prefect being set in 2427. Technology has increased dramatically and when humans started to interface with machines, technology boomed. There are individuals that share thoughts with the collective hive think, there is the ability to transfer consciousness to a machine, and people have back up simulations of themselves. Reynolds tackles interesting ideas about what it is to be a person and integrates past events that have impacted the universe into his plot lines.

I really like Reynold’s writing but I do have to be in the mood for it. These are rather plot centered and world building centered books and when I’m in the mood for that, it works tremendously, but the characters can be too serious at times. Reynold’s characters are so serious that sometimes the books can be a bit of a slog. There is little emotion other than the bleakness of the circumstances and because of that these are not lighthearted novels. You would never call this a fun book.

The Prefect was a highly enjoyable plot centered story with a mystery element that worked well. Reading about Dreyfus figure out why that ship was destroyed and how it tied into past events, that are mentioned in all the Revelation Space books, was highly engrossing. I read these books because each book gives me a better understanding of this universe. No one book spells out this world in detail. Piecing together this universe by the clues given in these books is what I love. Because of this type of storytelling Reynolds throws the reader in pretty deep and asks them to just figure things out without much explanation.

The Prefect is definitely a book that I like more after I’ve read it than while I’m reading it. There were times when I couldn’t read much because I was getting a bit bored but the overall mystery kept me reading. I really liked The Prefect and highly encourage people that are into world building and piecing together things to check out Alastair Reynolds.

Recommendation: Read this book but don’t set your expectations too high and I recommend this more to new readers of Scalzi than old.

Fuzzy Nation by John Scalzi has been one of those books that I wanted to wait a few days to review because I wanted to separate my feelings of the book and author from the hype that surrounds the book. This will be my 7th John Scalzi book I believe, so I am definitely a Scalzi fan. I enjoyed Fuzzy Nation but I wish that maybe this book could have been my first John Scalzi book because I have become so used to Scalzi’s writing and main protagonists in his books that this felt strangely uninspired to me.

Fuzzy Nation is a short science fiction book about a surveyor named Jack Holloway, who is on a mining planet that discovers a natural resource vein that will make him and the company he works for extremely rich. This planet can only be mined if there are no intelligent sapiens on the planet though. So when Jack runs across a family of smart Fuzzy animals that might be people, he’ll have to decide on defending the Fuzzy people in court, or cashing in.

This book was good. I liked the plot premise quite a bit and the court room scenes were done more entertaining than I thought they would be. Like other Scalzi books, this was a really fun book, with a lot of humor, and snarky attitude from the main character. However, I am starting to get to the point where Scalzi’s humor and snarky main characters are starting to become a shtick that Scalzi does, something that is becoming overused. I felt that Fuzzy Nation didn’t bring anything too interesting to the reader and it is a forgettable novel compared to some of Scalzi’s other books. This might be because this book is a remake of an older science fiction book, I’m not sure.

There really wasn’t a character that I really cared much about in Fuzzy Nation. Scalzi is great at creating these snarky characters with attitude but there has always been some more depth to his characters than what I saw from Jack Holloway. Scalzi wanted to stick to this idea that Jack was all about Jack and that what he did wasn’t because he was a good guy, but just stubborn. This might set up an anti-hero of sorts with Jack but I just didn’t feel like that approach really worked for me. I just got a little tired of the alpha-male contests in this book and the lack of decent people. I enjoyed the plot and the world, but the characters just didn’t work for me this time. Still, it was a good book, and I would recommend it to people that just started reading Scalzi.